annoying little problem

[Rockitman]

New to this board.  My god, what a treasure of information.  My eyes are tired from all the reading I've done here the last couple of days.  
Anyways, I have a technical problem my thumb.  When playing an ascending scale with the right hand, I cannot for the life of me get a nice smooth transition from the third finger to the crossed under thumb.  It always sounds herky jerky and not connected.  I cannot get my brain to tell my thumb to get ready for the cross after he plays his initial note, he only wants to react when it's time to play the cross.  
I sure would love to hear some tried and true techniques to overcome this nagging issue.  It really hinders many of the songs I am practicing, Mozart and Beethoven in particular.  
It's not as much an issue with my left thumb on descending scales, it's appearant, but not blatantly so as with the right.  Maybe it's because I'm left handed.
Curses to the inventor of the piano,  I[m sure he was right handed!!!!

[JK]

Don't worry, I think everyone has a problem like this at some point, it's all because we are not really designed to play the piano! There are a couple of things you can do that come to mind. First of all this is all about the movement of the largest thumb joint, a good exercise for the thumb is as follows: Hold down in your right hand the notes f# g# a# with fingers 2 3 4 respectively, now play a short ascending/descending scale with the thumb on the notes c d e f g f e d c, this makes your thumb go under the fingers which is good practice for making the thumb flexible. You can try the same thing holding down c# d# with 2 3 and playing a b c d e d c b a with the thumb. If you repeat this daily and work at it for a while then you should see an improvement, if you would like any other suggestions then there are other things you can do but I haven't time to write them just now!

Hope this helps.

[anda]

usually this problem appears when the thumb is not prepared for the transition, and it "flys" at the last moment to the key (at least that's what i observed at my students). try practicing the scales in slow motion, watch your #1 finger, it has to be on the key it will have to play long before it actually plays. the transition movement should begin while finger #2 is still playing (that means before fingers #3 and #4 have played). i hope i could explain clear enough (english is not my language), this method worked for all my students - it gets the finger prepared and well controlled at the moment of playing.